No matter what one thinks of the looming war with Iraq, most of us have to admit something good is developing out of the overall argument. The United Nations is demonstrating, conclusively, the same irrelevance the League of Nations did many years ago.

The United States foots a quarter of the bill for that U.N. paper tiger, international debating society and what do the American people get in return? We get a derogation of our liberty through bogus agreements, the right to host hundreds of ill-behaved diplomats from third- world countries and a system that allows hundreds of communist and socialist political activists into our country to instigate problems we do not need.

The true irrelevance of the U.N. becomes quite clear when all those resolutions they promulgated on Iraq are considered. The U.N. has been passing resolutions concerning the blocking of trade relations and the disarming of Iraq for well over a decade. Yet, few are obeyed and none have ever really been enforced.

Now, when the United States demands that Iraq finally be disarmed, as the U.N. ordered many years ago, other U.N. members protest.

Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general (a position Bill Clinton covets) lamely attempted to explain the U.N.'s inaction to disarm Iraq last Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal:

"[T]he . . . most urgent aspect of that task is to ensure that Iraq no longer has such weapons. Why? Because Iraq has actually used them in the past, and because it has twice, under its present leadership, committed aggression against its neighbors -- against Iran in 1980, and against Kuwait in 1990. That is why the Security Council is determined to disarm Iraq of these weapons, and has passed successive resolutions since 1991 requiring Iraq to disarm."

Right. "The Security Council is determined to disarm Iraq of these weapons" and has been trying since 1991. Meanwhile, Iraq has rearmed and developed even new types of weapons. But, in eleven years, the U.N. has not done one thing, except talk, to stop Iraq.

Annan continues: "Let's remember that the crisis in Iraq does not exist in a vacuum. What happens there will have a profound impact on other issues of great importance. The broader our consensus on how to deal with Iraq, the better the chance that we can come together again and deal effectively with other burning conflicts in the world, starting with the one between Israelis and Palestinians. We all know that only a just resolution of that conflict can bring any real hope of lasting stability in the region."

Is there anyone in the world who still believes the U.N. could do anything about North Korea or the Israeli- Palestinian problems? Fat chance! That irrelevant debating society is no more than a useless gaggle of babbling diplomats with an excuse to live in New York City rather than their little third world countries.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was exactly correct when he said, "I think the United Nations is dangerous to our republic and therefore we ought not to participate." Today, others are agreeing with Rep. Paul.

For instance, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey said: "My own view is it's very, very tricky" to support the Constitution while sustaining ties with the U. N. "If you're a strict constructionist it becomes very difficult to reconcile [participation in the U.N.] with our Constitution. . . . I see the United Nations as having very little value to us for our interests. Their constant carping about being in arrears, in light of the fact we contribute 25 percent [of the U.N. budget] since its inception is a source of irritation."

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) seems to also agree: "I think they do have a lot of dictatorships in [the United Nations]. They're very anti-free enterprise and it shows in the way they vote."

Kingston criticizes the United Nations for being excessively bureaucratic and wasteful of U.S. taxpayer dollars. "I think most people who have a sense of the world order realize the United Nations has become a bunch of bureaucrats more concerned about the next state dinner than preserving world peace," he said. "What I don't like about the United Nations is that while the average taxpayer is out there working hard the U.N. people are out there enjoying American tax dollars and just nibbling away at American freedom."

Clearly, the time has come to seriously consider getting the U.N. out of the United States and the United States out of the U.N.

There has been so much news concerning health care lately the topic is becoming rather complicated with political proposals and rhetoric. Supervising and providing health care is not a duty delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, of course. But, the federal government is deeply involved, so we'll have to report on it.

Most participants in the federally sponsored health care programs understand that major changes are needed. Generally, the programs were designed back in the era of President Johnson's Great Society fiasco and expanded every year thereafter. Now, with the baby-boomer generation looking towards retirement soon, these federally paid health care programs are expected to become a major drain on the federal budget. Already, the Medicaid program covers 45 million low income Americans. Lumped together, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security accounted for 42 percent of all federal spending last year.

Currently, the Bush Administration leads the pack with a proposal for making major changes to the Medicare/Medicaid programs. Congress seems to be grudgingly coming around to the administration's position, but slowly.

Among other things, Bush wants to give the states more power to determine who receives what benefits in the Medicaid program. Dubya also proposes changes so senior citizens could/would rely more on private health plans and less on the government for their health benefits under Medicare. Bush wants to change the programs so that people get away from the notion that everyone should be in the same government-managed system with the same benefits. Part of that program would also allow individuals the option of picking a private health plan.

Last month, Michael Bond, John C. Goodman, Ronald Lindsey and Richard Teske, reported in "Reforming Medicaid," Policy Report No. 257, for the National Center for Policy Analysis(2), that costs are skyrocketing. As reported:

"Medicaid is enormously expensive. For the second year in a row, spending on Medicaid (for the poor) will exceed spending on Medicare (for the elderly). At $280 billion this year, Medicaid costs almost $1,000 for every man, woman and child in the country -- or $4,000 for a family of four. Indeed, it is likely that many taxpayers are paying more in taxes to fund health insurance for the poor than they pay for private health insurance for themselves and their own families."

That shouldn't be surprising, though. Anytime government extends its tentacles into an industry, costs to the end user skyrocket. For instance, just for a simple medical procedure, the total Medicare/Medicaid paperwork required weighs about a pound.

Another problem is contribution and participation. A huge segment of society is not required to participate in these government sponsored health care programs. That is, the government provides government workers with much better health care programs than that which is provided by government to civilians.

That practice should be ended. The Medicare/ Medicaid programs would be instantly remodeled and brought up to date with today's market if everyone in government were required to use those programs as their primary health care provider.

Some Republicans understand that medical savings accounts(3) would be the least expensive and easiest to manage way to go for both consumers and government. Democrats, however, are against the medical savings account plan because government would then lose some of the power it has over that segment of the population.

Some Democrats also privately maintain that many of their constituents would be too stupid to properly benefit from such a plan. Perhaps they have a point there. After all, their constituents are voting for Socialist-Democrats.

Clearly, some quick action needs to be taken; else government controlled health care programs will soon consume the federal budget and cause even higher taxes for all of us. Government obviously has no intention of vacating the health care field. So, the only really workable way of holding down costs is the medical savings account program and putting all government employees in the same system offered to senior citizens. But, Capitol Hill will not cooperate in such a plan because they would personally have to give up all the fancy choices available to them.

Therefore, we see a "Catch 22" brewing here.

1. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/medicare/health-care>

2. <http://www.ncpa.org/pi/health/>

3.<http://www.ncpa.org/pi/health/hcbb/hedex.html>

Below are a few legal terms that seem to apply to the current news reports. These are provided only because they offer interesting insight into what some lawyers in the Department of Justice may (or should) be thinking if they read the same news reports we do.

Just for kicks, we picked the oldest law dictionary on our shelf: "The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary" by James C. Cahill, dated 1922. This dictionary was chosen because it was published before American law was corrupted by the FDR administration.

Conspiracy: "A combination of two or more persons by some concerted action to accomplish some criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish some purpose, not itself criminal or unlawful, by criminal or unlawful means."

Malfeasance: "The unjust performance of some act which the party had no right, or which he had contracted not, to do."

Misfeasance: "The performance of an act which might lawfully be done, in an improper manner, by which another person receives an injury."

Nonfeasance: "The neglect or failure of a person to do some act which he ought to do. The term is not generally used to denote a breach of contract, but rather the failure to perform a duty towards the public whereby some individual sustains special damage, as where a sheriff fails to execute a writ.

"When a legislative act requires a person to do a thing, its nonfeasance will subject the party to punishment; as, if a statute requires the supervisors of the highways to repair such highways, the neglect to repair them may be punished."

Last but not least comes a term from a twenty year old political dictionary of obviously liberal bent. We choose this book because we believe that, when the subject at hand is the behavior of liberal politicians, it is probably best to define the terms the way the liberal politicians understand them. And, this term was once a real favorite of the socialist reactionaries among us:

Civil Disobedience: "Refusal to obey a law, usually on the ground that the law is morally reprehensible. Recent examples of civil disobedience include Negro refusals to obey segregation laws and actions of anti-Vietnam war groups in refusing to honor draft regulations. Civil disobedience ordinarily takes the form of nonviolent resistance and is aimed at arousing public opinion against the law."

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